


Forcible Grief Counselling

by NammiKisulora



Series: Jonny deals badly with Nastya going Out [1]
Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Jonny is having Emotions (and he doesn't like it), Post-Story: Out (The Mechanisms), Temporary Character Death, non-consensual drugging, the rest of the Mechs are annoyed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:07:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28317252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NammiKisulora/pseuds/NammiKisulora
Summary: Jonny deals badly with Nastya going Out. The rest of the crew decide that they need to do something about it.
Relationships: Jonny d'Ville & The Mechanisms Ensemble
Series: Jonny deals badly with Nastya going Out [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2082120
Comments: 10
Kudos: 39





	Forcible Grief Counselling

Nastya is gone, for good this time, and Jonny is the only one who saw her go.  He tells the crew the facts of it, but not how his metal heart ached and skittered and skipped its usual beats as he saw her go through that airlock.  It still hasn’t gone back to its usual steady tick-tick-tick,  and his fingers tingle numbly. Nastya is gone, and she doesn’t intend to come back to them.  E ver.

Jonny fingers his gun, turning it over and over in his hands. When did he sit down?  _ Oh _ . Without noticing, he’s wandered back to the airlock,  _ again _ .  He pats at his belt, but the flask isn’t there. He must have left it… wherever he was. Commons, maybe? Or his room?

“Jonny?”

He starts, was that her voice?

“Jonny, where are you?” Marius calls for him again. Jonny frowns; they sound nothing alike. With a groan, he gets back on his feet. Marius have been fussing and hovering more than usual lately, not getting the fucking hint that _no_ , Jonny is _not_ _interested_ in discussing his feelings about Nastya’s departure with him or _anyone_. Because he doesn’t have any! She can do whatever the fuck she wants, even if it’s abandoning him for the rest of eternity! None of his business, nope. He lets his head fall back on the wall with a dull _thunk_ before pushing off it and going to find Marius. It won’t do to let him find Jonny here, he might think he’s moping or something.

*

“Put. It. _Down_. Don’t – don’t touch her stuff!”

“Okay, okay!” Tim puts the violin back down and holds up his hands. “Fine!”

“Just fuck off already!” Jonny cocks his pistol and Tim glares at him. Jonny’s finger twitches on the trigger, but Tim is already backing out of the door. When it shuts behind him, Jonny carefully replaces the violin in its case and pushes it back into its place under the bed. Then he sneezes violently six times in a row from the cloud of dust that explodes in his face. If his eyes are a bit red when he emerges from Nastya’s room, coughing and wheezing, it’s easy to blame it on the dust.

*

“Fuck, Jonny! Calm down!”

“I AM CALM!”

Ashes ducks the haphazardly fired bullet easily, but find that they apparently have left their own gun somewhere else.  _ Well, shit _ .  They dive behind the kitchen island, not keen on being killed again just yet; their lungs still ache from their friendly hide-and-shoot game with Tim after breakfast. Another bullet shatters an unwisely placed mug on the counter.

“Not in the kitchen”, they yell, because while the House Rules may be the only rules the Mechanisms ever follow, they are damn important in keeping eternity running smoothly on the Aurora. Jonny, however, appears to have forgotten this. _Again_.

This is getting way out of hand.

*

The main controls shatter, sparks fly and smoke starts pouring out of the dashboard.  In half a moment, everything is utter chaos with shouting and swearing and  a harsh, crunching sound. When Brian and Ashes finally have managed to put out the fire, Jonny is lying dead on the floor with his head bashed in, and Ivy is standing over him with a bloody steel ruler in her hand.

Tim and Marius skid onto the bridge and take in the scene,  Raphaella landing next to them a moment later.

“What happened?”

“ _Someone_ threw a tantrum and shot the controls.” Ivy glares down at Jonny’s prone form. “We have neglected to specify in the House Rules that violence towards the Aurora’s more sensitive parts is off limits. I suggest a Crew Meeting to look over them.”

“Like he gives a fuck right now.” Ashes comes over to them and nudges Jonny with a boot. “He’s broken all of them like, ten times in the past week alone.”

“Only 95 % of them, on twelve separate occasions in the last seven day period”, Ivy replies automatically. Ashes roll their eyes.

“Whatever. We need to do something, it’s been three years and he’s just getting worse. Maybe if he’d just admit he misses her he could deal with it.” They look up to see the rest of the crew staring at them. Tim is the first to speak.

“Ashes… you know this is Jonny, right? I don’t think he’s ever admitted to have feelings about anything.”

“Well, tough. I guess we’ll have to make him, then.”

At their feet, Jonny groans  and starts to stir.

*

“So how are we doing it?”

“Kill him?”

“No, that’d make him too pissy to reason with.”

“Reason with Jonny? Have you _met_ him? Especially lately?!”

“So we drug him, then. Raphaella can probably cook something up for us.”

“Yeah. And then you do your whole… psychology thing.” Ashes wave their hand, and Marius grimaces.

“Why does it have to be me?”

“Well, you’re the one who’s always going on about how we need to talk about our feelings and try to psychoanalyse our weaponry. Time to do some real work, shrink boy.”

“Fine! Just make sure to tie him up really, really well.”

*

Jonny blinks.  His head feels all fuzzy, light and heavy at the same time.  The last thing he remembers is… the Toy Soldier offering him a cup of tea? Yeah, that’s it.  He’d splashed in a good bit of whiskey and drunk it down, and then it went black. Which is… weird. He tries to get up, and that’s when he discovers that his hands are securely tied to the chair he’s sitting on. Experimentally, he kicks out, only to find his legs are tied as well. And his torso, as a glance downwards tell him.

“What the fuck, guys?” he calls. He’s in one of the empty storage areas, and none of the crew seems to be around. However, there must be a reason for his current situation, so someone is probably nearby, ready to tell him. Was it because he, um… He frowns. The list of potential things that might have pissed them off unrolls in front of his inner eye, and now that he takes a moment to think about it, he _might_ just see why they’re a bit annoyed with him. Maybe they’ve just stuck him in here to get some fucking peace and quiet for a while? Well, he’ll show them that it takes more than a bit of measly rope to keep him contained. With an annoyed sigh, he starts wriggling and working on the ropes.

Unfortunately, whoever did this knew what they were doing, which points to… well, any of them, really. He stops struggling when the door opens, and Marius – no, shit, it’s the whole fucking crew! – files in. If he was someone else, he’d be worried right now, because they all look weirdly serious.

For a minute or two, no one says a word. Jonny glares at them, daring them to break the silence first. At last, Marius steps forward, after what looks like a firm nudge from Ashes.  Marius has put on his best psychiatrist face,  which never bodes well.

“We need to talk about your emotions.”

Jonny freezes. Then he collects himself with a sneer.

“What the fuck’s an emotion? I think I ate one once, but Ivy said it was just a brain. Anyway it made me sick.”

“Jonny. I –” Marius glances around him at the other crewmembers and pauses, “ _we_ know you miss Nastya a lot. You flew with her long before any of us joined you, and –”

“Fuck off!”

“We all miss her, you know. It’s okay to grieve, to be sad –”

“I’m not fucking sad!”

“What we’re trying to say is that we’re here for you, Jonny, if you ever need to”, Marius glances around him for support, and the rest of the crew nod encouragingly, “talk, or – or a hug, or –”

And that is the moment Jonny breaks  free of the ropes holding him.

The fight is quick, brutal and bloody, and ends with all eight of them lying dead in various state of dismemberment. Jonny regenerates first, and limps off to demolish the target practice range for _completely fucking unrelated reasons, okay?!_

Eventually, they manage to make the Aurora manoeuvrable again, but the two years remaining before they make landfall are… uncomfortable.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know what the hell this was. Did you like it? Well, I thrive on kudos and comments! <3


End file.
